Ducati

In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno Cavalieri Ducati; founded Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers
and other radio components. In 1935 they had become successful enough
to enable construction of a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of
the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the
Ducati factory being a repeated target of Allied bombing.

Ducati Factory

Ducati "Cucciolo", 1950

Meanwhile, at the small Turinese firm SIATA (Societa Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie), Aldo Farinelli began developing a small pushrodengine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo"
(Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to
the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on
standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the
little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units
for sale.

In 1950, after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold, in
collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own
Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 48 cc bike
weighing 98 pounds (44 kg), with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h), and
had a 15 mm carburetor (0.59-inch) giving just under 200 mpg‑US (1.2 L/100 km; 240 mpg‑imp). Ducati soon dropped the Cucciolo name in favor of "55M" and "65TL".

When the market moved toward larger motorcycles, Ducati management
decided to respond, making an impression at an early-1952 Milan show,
introducing their 65TS cycle and Cruiser (a four-stroke motor scooter).
Despite being described as the most interesting new machine at the 1952
show, the Cruiser was not a great success, and only a few thousand were
made over a two-year period before the model ceased production.

In 1953, management split the company into two separate entities,
Ducati Meccanica SpA and Ducati Elettronica, in acknowledgment of its
diverging motorcycle and electronics product lines. Ducati Elettronica
became Ducati Energia SpA
in the eighties. Dr. Giuseppe Montano took over as head of Ducati
Meccanica SpA and the Borgo Panigale factory was modernized with
government assistance. By 1954, Ducati Meccanica SpA had increased
production to 120 bikes a day.

In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the fastest 250 cc road bike then available, the Mach 1.[4][5][6] In the 1970s Ducati began producing large-displacement V-twin motorcycles and in 1973, released a V-twin with the trademarked desmodromic valve design. In 1985, Cagiva
bought Ducati and planned to rebadge Ducati motorcycles with the
"Cagiva" name. By the time the purchase was completed, Cagiva kept the
"Ducati" name on its motorcycles. Eleven years later, in 1996, Cagiva
accepted the offer from Texas Pacific Group
and sold a 51% stake in the company for US$325 million; then, in 1998,
Texas Pacific Group bought most of the remaining 49% to become the sole
owner of Ducati. In 1999, TPG issued an initial public offering
of Ducati stock and renamed the company "Ducati Motor Holding SpA". TPG
sold over 65% of its shares in Ducati, leaving TPG the majority
shareholder. In December 2005, Ducati returned to Italian ownership with
the sale of Texas Pacific's stake (minus one share) to Investindustrial Holdings, the investment fund of Carlo and Andrea Bonomi.

In April 2012, Volkswagen Group's Audi subsidiary announced its intention to buy Ducati for €860 million (US$1.2 billion). Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch,
a motorcycle enthusiast, had long coveted Ducati, and had regretted
that he passed up an opportunity to buy the company from the Italian
government in 1984. Analysts doubted a tiny motorcycle maker would have a
meaningful effect on a company the size of Volkswagen, commenting that
the acquisition has "a trophy feel to it," and, "is driven by VW's
passion for nameplates rather than industrial or financial logic".
Italian luxury car brand Lamborghini was strengthened under VW ownership.[7][8]
AUDI AG's Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. subsidiary acquired 100 percent
of the shares of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. on 19 July 2012 for
€747 million (US$909 million).[2]

Motorcycle designs

Ducati is best known for high-performance motorcycles characterized by large-capacity four-stroke, 90° V-twin engines,[13] with a desmodromic valve design.[14]
Ducati refers to this configuration as L-twin because one cylinder is
vertical while the other is horizontal, making it look like a letter
"L". Modern Ducatis remain among the dominant performance motorcycles
available today partly because of the desmodromic valve design, which is
nearing its 50th year of use. Desmodromic valves are closed with a
separate, dedicated cam lobe and lifter instead of the conventional
valve springs
used in most internal combustion engines in consumer vehicles. This
allows the cams to have a more radical profile, thus opening and closing
the valves more quickly without the risk of valve-float, which causes a
loss of power that is likely when using a "passive" closing mechanism
under the same conditions.

While most other manufacturers use wet clutches (with the spinning parts bathed in oil)[15] Ducati previously used multiplate dry clutches in many of their motorcycles. The dry clutch eliminates the power loss from oil viscosity
drag on the engine, even though the engagement may not be as smooth as
the oil-bath versions, but the clutch plates can wear more rapidly.
Ducati has converted to wet clutches across their current product lines.

Ducati also extensively uses a trellis frame,
although Ducati's MotoGP project broke with this tradition by
introducing a revolutionary carbon fibre frame for the Ducati
Desmosedici GP9.

Product history

The chief designer of most Ducati motorcycles in the 1950s was Fabio Taglioni
(1920–2001). His designs ranged from the small single-cylinder machines
that were successful in the Italian 'street races' to the
large-capacity twins of the 1980s. Ducati introduced the Pantah in 1979; its engine was updated in the 1990s in the Ducati SuperSport
(SS) series. All modern Ducati engines are derivatives of the Pantah,
which uses a toothed belt to actuate the engine's valves. Taglioni used
the Cavallino Rampante (identified with the Ferrari brand) on his Ducati motorbikes, Taglioni chose this emblem of courage and daring as a sign of respect and admiration for Francesco Baracca, a heroic World War I fighter pilot who died during an air raid in 1918.[16]

Motorcycle design history

Ducati
has produced several styles of motorcycle engines, including varying
the number of cylinders, type of valve actuation and fuel delivery.
Ducati is best known for its V-twin engine,
called a L-twin by the company, which is the powerplant in the majority
of Ducati-marqued motorcycles. Ducati has also manufactured engines
with one, two, three or four cylinders; operated by pull rod valves and
push rod valves; single, double and triple overhead camshafts; two-stroke
and even at one stage manufactured small diesel engines, many of which
were used to power boats, generators, garden machinery and emergency
pumps (for example, for fire fighting). The engines were the IS series
from 7 to 22 hp (5.2 to 16.4 kW) air-cooled and the larger twin DM
series water- and air-cooled. The engines have been found in all parts
of the globe. Wisconsin Diesel even assembled and "badge engineered" the
engines in the USA. They have also produced outboard motors for marine
use. Currently, Ducati makes no other engines except for its
motorcycles.

On current Ducati motors, except for the Desmosedici and 1199
Panigale, the valves are actuated by a standard valve cam shaft which is
rotated by a timing belt driven by the motor directly. The teeth on the belt keep the camshaft
drive pulleys indexed. On older Ducati motors, prior to 1986, drive was
by solid shaft that transferred to the camshaft through bevel-cut
gears. This method of valve actuation was used on many of Ducati's older
single-cylinder motorcycles — the shaft tube is visible on the outside of the cylinder.

Ducati is also famous for using the desmodromic valve system
championed by engineer and designer Fabio Taglioni, though the firm has
also used engines that use valve springs to close their valves. In the
early days, Ducati reserved the desmodromic valve heads for its higher
performance bikes and its race bikes. These valves do not suffer from valve float
at high engine speeds, thus a desmodromic engine is capable of far
higher revolutions than a similarly configured engine with traditional
spring-valve heads.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Ducati produced a wide range of small
two-stroke bikes, mainly sub-100 cc capacities. Large quantities of some
models were exported to the United States.